Fear of valve boxes...

Well... blow outs are under way and I've had the strangest day ever for it.... opened up a vb today and found a mouse nest in it..... at a different site... opened up the box and found it filled with a wasp nest... yikes... had to scoop out the nest to get to the valves...later on .., opening up some valves and saw something move in the box... SNAKE... dammit....

I found on two different sites today, in the valve boxes, toads (or frogs). I've seen more of them this year than ever before. I've seen all three that you mentioned before too. Only garder(sp?) snakes. I love seeing the black widows in there - not!!

On old concrete boxes for DCVAs the only part we can get to sometime is the metal flap that opens with just enough room to reach your hand in their. I've stuck my hand in those things for 20+ years feeling blindly for shut offs. In the back of my mind I'm always thinking a snake or spider is curled up and ready to strike. The worst that has happened is getting my hand on a pile of slugs. The slime stays on your hand all day. IMHO I'd rather find a snake than a mouse. Snakes are our friend.

On old concrete boxes for DCVAs the only part we can get to sometime is the metal flap that opens with just enough room to reach your hand in their.

Click to expand...

Those are "water meter" lids and their sole purpose is to have a small lid on a larger lid so it can be opened to read the meter. When we use concrete boxes we put full, solid cast iron lids on them so the whole thing has to come off to access the valve. (We use lid pullers for this purpose so hands are nowhere near the box opening until we've checked things out first.) Also aids in finding the valve box with a metal detector in the event grass grows over the box.